Smoking and the big screen

From Bette Davis to Carrie Bradshaw, James Dean to James Bond, smokers have always seemed... well, pretty damn cool. Rock stars, screen idols, fashionistas - all would look incomplete without that familiar little white stick - right?

Maybe once, but not any more. Recently, we've noticed a distinct lack of smoking celebs; it seems that a packet of fags is no longer the A-lister's accessory du jour.

Introducing cigarettes

Sir Walter Raleigh is often credited with sneaking Elizabeth I her first fag, which he brought back from the New World, and so the Brits' love affair with tobacco began.

However, while men could light up in public freely, smoking was seen as something that a respectable lady would never do. This was turned around in the 1920s. In 1929 Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud and known as the 'father of public relations') organised a publicity stunt for the American Tobacco Company. He sent a group of young women to New York's Easter Parade and on his signal they all lit up Lucky Strike cigarettes. Bernays told the press that the women were suffragettes who were smoking 'torches of freedom'. The result: the taboo against women smoking in public was broken.

Smoking proved you were adult, and made women feel independent. It was something everyone enjoyed - including sportsmen. No one considered the health implications, and even children weren't discouraged from taking up the habit.

Smoking through the decades

But it was the golden age of Hollywood that cemented the cigarette's status as ultimate icon of cool. From the ice-cool queens of the silver screen, think Bette Davis in Now Voyager (1942), to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (that elegant cigarette holder) and Olivia Newton-John in Grease stubbing out her cigarette with her red stiletto, the cigarette's always been centre stage.

In the swinging '60s, cigarettes and joints were seldom far from the fingers of the rock gods of the age, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix.

So after many decades where people puffed away quite happily, what changed? In the '80s we started becoming much more health conscious (flashback to Jane Fonda and Jamie Lee Curtis's workout videos), and the link between smoking and various forms of cancer became apparent. National health campaigns made the dangers of smoking clear to everyone, and cigarette advertising was severely restricted.

In the '90s smoking experienced a revival with films like Pulp Fiction placing the cigarette firmly in the fingers of the coolest on-screen characters. And supermodels were often photographed backstage - curlers in hair and fag on the go. Girls looking to emulate their idols started smoking to keep their weight down. But the anti-smoking movement rumbled on, culminating in England on July 1, 2007 with the introduction of the smoking ban.

Smoking taboo

The ban saw smokers congregating in roped-off areas of pavement outside pubs, bars and clubs across the land, huddled together come rain or shine in their shared addiction.

Single girl icons Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw battled with their smoking habits - Bridget scribbling in her diary how many fags she'd smoked each day, while Carrie tried to ditch her Marlboro Lights to make her man, Aidan, happy. (Sarah Jessica Parker's smoking habit parallels her character Carrie's closely - she was reportedly dismayed when she'd managed to quit in real life only for her alter ego to carry on smoking in the Sex and the City movie.)

Die hards

Celebrity smokers continued to channel the rebellious spirit of earlier decades - think Kate n' Pete, Blake n' Amy strutting along, fag in hand, oozing rock 'n' roll decadence. But the glamour was replaced with an altogether more sinister image. Close-up shots of Kate Moss' spotty skin and Pete Doherty's yellowing teeth revealed the less attractive side of a nicotine habit.

Suddenly, the site of Britney, Lily or Amy strolling along sucking on a fag makes smoking seem skanky rather than stylish.

The end of smoking

So will smoking ever be completely passé? Matthew Hilton Professor of Social History at the University of Birmingham and author of Smoking in British Popular Culture, 1800-2000 doesn't think so. "The fact that all smoking and health campaigns must face is that pretty much since the cigarette was invented smoking for young people has been - and remains - cool," he says.

The health case against cigarettes has been won hands down - we know smoking kills, and yet plenty of people still do it. But if the fear of cancer won't make you stub out that last cigarette, consider the company you're keeping. Smoking is no longer the preserve of glamorous Hollywood stars, but is rather more closely associated with the likes of Lindsay Lohan and pals standing shivering on grubby pavements outside clubs, desperately trying to get their nicotine fix. And what's so glam about that?

Updated: 13/04/2010

Written by Phoebe Frangoul